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28 results (View BibTeX file of all listed publications)

2019

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Accurate Vision-based Manipulation through Contact Reasoning

Kloss, A., Bauza, M., Wu, J., Tenenbaum, J. B., Rodriguez, A., Bohg, J.

In International Conference on Robotics and Automation, May 2019 (inproceedings) Submitted

Abstract
Planning contact interactions is one of the core challenges of many robotic tasks. Optimizing contact locations while taking dynamics into account is computationally costly and in only partially observed environments, executing contact-based tasks often suffers from low accuracy. We present an approach that addresses these two challenges for the problem of vision-based manipulation. First, we propose to disentangle contact from motion optimization. Thereby, we improve planning efficiency by focusing computation on promising contact locations. Second, we use a hybrid approach for perception and state estimation that combines neural networks with a physically meaningful state representation. In simulation and real-world experiments on the task of planar pushing, we show that our method is more efficient and achieves a higher manipulation accuracy than previous vision-based approaches.

Video link (url) [BibTex]

2019

Kloss, A., Bauza, M., Wu, J., Tenenbaum, J. B., Rodriguez, A., Bohg, J. Accurate Vision-based Manipulation through Contact Reasoning In International Conference on Robotics and Automation, May 2019 (inproceedings) Submitted

Video link (url) [BibTex]

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Learning Latent Space Dynamics for Tactile Servoing

Sutanto, G., Ratliff, N., Sundaralingam, B., Chebotar, Y., Su, Z., Handa, A., Fox, D.

In Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) 2019, IEEE, International Conference on Robotics and Automation, May 2019 (inproceedings) Accepted

pdf video [BibTex]

Sutanto, G., Ratliff, N., Sundaralingam, B., Chebotar, Y., Su, Z., Handa, A., Fox, D. Learning Latent Space Dynamics for Tactile Servoing In Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) 2019, IEEE, International Conference on Robotics and Automation, May 2019 (inproceedings) Accepted

pdf video [BibTex]

2013

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Probabilistic Object Tracking Using a Range Camera

Wüthrich, M., Pastor, P., Kalakrishnan, M., Bohg, J., Schaal, S.

In IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems, pages: 3195-3202, IEEE, November 2013 (inproceedings)

Abstract
We address the problem of tracking the 6-DoF pose of an object while it is being manipulated by a human or a robot. We use a dynamic Bayesian network to perform inference and compute a posterior distribution over the current object pose. Depending on whether a robot or a human manipulates the object, we employ a process model with or without knowledge of control inputs. Observations are obtained from a range camera. As opposed to previous object tracking methods, we explicitly model self-occlusions and occlusions from the environment, e.g, the human or robotic hand. This leads to a strongly non-linear observation model and additional dependencies in the Bayesian network. We employ a Rao-Blackwellised particle filter to compute an estimate of the object pose at every time step. In a set of experiments, we demonstrate the ability of our method to accurately and robustly track the object pose in real-time while it is being manipulated by a human or a robot.

arXiv Video Code Video DOI Project Page [BibTex]

2013

Wüthrich, M., Pastor, P., Kalakrishnan, M., Bohg, J., Schaal, S. Probabilistic Object Tracking Using a Range Camera In IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems, pages: 3195-3202, IEEE, November 2013 (inproceedings)

arXiv Video Code Video DOI Project Page [BibTex]

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Hypothesis Testing Framework for Active Object Detection

Sankaran, B., Atanasov, N., Le Ny, J., Koletschka, T., Pappas, G., Daniilidis, K.

In IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), May 2013, clmc (inproceedings)

Abstract
One of the central problems in computer vision is the detection of semantically important objects and the estimation of their pose. Most of the work in object detection has been based on single image processing and its performance is limited by occlusions and ambiguity in appearance and geometry. This paper proposes an active approach to object detection by controlling the point of view of a mobile depth camera. When an initial static detection phase identifies an object of interest, several hypotheses are made about its class and orientation. The sensor then plans a sequence of view-points, which balances the amount of energy used to move with the chance of identifying the correct hypothesis. We formulate an active M-ary hypothesis testing problem, which includes sensor mobility, and solve it using a point-based approximate POMDP algorithm. The validity of our approach is verified through simulation and experiments with real scenes captured by a kinect sensor. The results suggest a significant improvement over static object detection.

pdf [BibTex]

Sankaran, B., Atanasov, N., Le Ny, J., Koletschka, T., Pappas, G., Daniilidis, K. Hypothesis Testing Framework for Active Object Detection In IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), May 2013, clmc (inproceedings)

pdf [BibTex]

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Action and Goal Related Decision Variables Modulate the Competition Between Multiple Potential Targets

Enachescu, V, Christopoulos, Vassilios N, Schrater, P. R., Schaal, S.

In Abstracts of Neural Control of Movement Conference (NCM 2013), February 2013 (inproceedings)

[BibTex]

Enachescu, V, Christopoulos, Vassilios N, Schrater, P. R., Schaal, S. Action and Goal Related Decision Variables Modulate the Competition Between Multiple Potential Targets In Abstracts of Neural Control of Movement Conference (NCM 2013), February 2013 (inproceedings)

[BibTex]

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Fusing visual and tactile sensing for 3-D object reconstruction while grasping

Ilonen, J., Bohg, J., Kyrki, V.

In IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), pages: 3547-3554, 2013 (inproceedings)

Abstract
In this work, we propose to reconstruct a complete 3-D model of an unknown object by fusion of visual and tactile information while the object is grasped. Assuming the object is symmetric, a first hypothesis of its complete 3-D shape is generated from a single view. This initial model is used to plan a grasp on the object which is then executed with a robotic manipulator equipped with tactile sensors. Given the detected contacts between the fingers and the object, the full object model including the symmetry parameters can be refined. This refined model will then allow the planning of more complex manipulation tasks. The main contribution of this work is an optimal estimation approach for the fusion of visual and tactile data applying the constraint of object symmetry. The fusion is formulated as a state estimation problem and solved with an iterative extended Kalman filter. The approach is validated experimentally using both artificial and real data from two different robotic platforms.

DOI Project Page [BibTex]

Ilonen, J., Bohg, J., Kyrki, V. Fusing visual and tactile sensing for 3-D object reconstruction while grasping In IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), pages: 3547-3554, 2013 (inproceedings)

DOI Project Page [BibTex]

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Learning Objective Functions for Manipulation

Kalakrishnan, M., Pastor, P., Righetti, L., Schaal, S.

In 2013 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, IEEE, Karlsruhe, Germany, 2013 (inproceedings)

Abstract
We present an approach to learning objective functions for robotic manipulation based on inverse reinforcement learning. Our path integral inverse reinforcement learning algorithm can deal with high-dimensional continuous state-action spaces, and only requires local optimality of demonstrated trajectories. We use L 1 regularization in order to achieve feature selection, and propose an efficient algorithm to minimize the resulting convex objective function. We demonstrate our approach by applying it to two core problems in robotic manipulation. First, we learn a cost function for redundancy resolution in inverse kinematics. Second, we use our method to learn a cost function over trajectories, which is then used in optimization-based motion planning for grasping and manipulation tasks. Experimental results show that our method outperforms previous algorithms in high-dimensional settings.

link (url) DOI [BibTex]

Kalakrishnan, M., Pastor, P., Righetti, L., Schaal, S. Learning Objective Functions for Manipulation In 2013 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, IEEE, Karlsruhe, Germany, 2013 (inproceedings)

link (url) DOI [BibTex]

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Learning Task Error Models for Manipulation

Pastor, P., Kalakrishnan, M., Binney, J., Kelly, J., Righetti, L., Sukhatme, G. S., Schaal, S.

In 2013 IEEE Conference on Robotics and Automation, IEEE, Karlsruhe, Germany, 2013 (inproceedings)

Abstract
Precise kinematic forward models are important for robots to successfully perform dexterous grasping and manipulation tasks, especially when visual servoing is rendered infeasible due to occlusions. A lot of research has been conducted to estimate geometric and non-geometric parameters of kinematic chains to minimize reconstruction errors. However, kinematic chains can include non-linearities, e.g. due to cable stretch and motor-side encoders, that result in significantly different errors for different parts of the state space. Previous work either does not consider such non-linearities or proposes to estimate non-geometric parameters of carefully engineered models that are robot specific. We propose a data-driven approach that learns task error models that account for such unmodeled non-linearities. We argue that in the context of grasping and manipulation, it is sufficient to achieve high accuracy in the task relevant state space. We identify this relevant state space using previously executed joint configurations and learn error corrections for those. Therefore, our system is developed to generate subsequent executions that are similar to previous ones. The experiments show that our method successfully captures the non-linearities in the head kinematic chain (due to a counterbalancing spring) and the arm kinematic chains (due to cable stretch) of the considered experimental platform, see Fig. 1. The feasibility of the presented error learning approach has also been evaluated in independent DARPA ARM-S testing contributing to successfully complete 67 out of 72 grasping and manipulation tasks.

link (url) DOI [BibTex]

Pastor, P., Kalakrishnan, M., Binney, J., Kelly, J., Righetti, L., Sukhatme, G. S., Schaal, S. Learning Task Error Models for Manipulation In 2013 IEEE Conference on Robotics and Automation, IEEE, Karlsruhe, Germany, 2013 (inproceedings)

link (url) DOI [BibTex]

2008

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Human movement generation based on convergent flow fields: A computational model and a behavioral experiment

Hoffmann, H., Schaal, S.

In Advances in Computational Motor Control VII, Symposium at the Society for Neuroscience Meeting, Washington DC, 2008, 2008, clmc (inproceedings)

link (url) [BibTex]

2008

Hoffmann, H., Schaal, S. Human movement generation based on convergent flow fields: A computational model and a behavioral experiment In Advances in Computational Motor Control VII, Symposium at the Society for Neuroscience Meeting, Washington DC, 2008, 2008, clmc (inproceedings)

link (url) [BibTex]

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Movement reproduction and obstacle avoidance with dynamic movement primitives and potential fields

Park, D., Hoffmann, H., Pastor, P., Schaal, S.

In IEEE International Conference on Humanoid Robots, 2008., 2008, clmc (inproceedings)

PDF [BibTex]

Park, D., Hoffmann, H., Pastor, P., Schaal, S. Movement reproduction and obstacle avoidance with dynamic movement primitives and potential fields In IEEE International Conference on Humanoid Robots, 2008., 2008, clmc (inproceedings)

PDF [BibTex]

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The dual role of uncertainty in force field learning

Mistry, M., Theodorou, E., Hoffmann, H., Schaal, S.

In Abstracts of the Eighteenth Annual Meeting of Neural Control of Movement (NCM), Naples, Florida, April 29-May 4, 2008, clmc (inproceedings)

Abstract
Force field experiments have been a successful paradigm for studying the principles of planning, execution, and learning in human arm movements. Subjects have been shown to cope with the disturbances generated by force fields by learning internal models of the underlying dynamics to predict disturbance effects or by increasing arm impedance (via co-contraction) if a predictive approach becomes infeasible. Several studies have addressed the issue uncertainty in force field learning. Scheidt et al. demonstrated that subjects exposed to a viscous force field of fixed structure but varying strength (randomly changing from trial to trial), learn to adapt to the mean disturbance, regardless of the statistical distribution. Takahashi et al. additionally show a decrease in strength of after-effects after learning in the randomly varying environment. Thus they suggest that the nervous system adopts a dual strategy: learning an internal model of the mean of the random environment, while simultaneously increasing arm impedance to minimize the consequence of errors. In this study, we examine what role variance plays in the learning of uncertain force fields. We use a 7 degree-of-freedom exoskeleton robot as a manipulandum (Sarcos Master Arm, Sarcos, Inc.), and apply a 3D viscous force field of fixed structure and strength randomly selected from trial to trial. Additionally, in separate blocks of trials, we alter the variance of the randomly selected strength multiplier (while keeping a constant mean). In each block, after sufficient learning has occurred, we apply catch trials with no force field and measure the strength of after-effects. As expected in higher variance cases, results show increasingly smaller levels of after-effects as the variance is increased, thus implying subjects choose the robust strategy of increasing arm impedance to cope with higher levels of uncertainty. Interestingly, however, subjects show an increase in after-effect strength with a small amount of variance as compared to the deterministic (zero variance) case. This result implies that a small amount of variability aides in internal model formation, presumably a consequence of the additional amount of exploration conducted in the workspace of the task.

[BibTex]

Mistry, M., Theodorou, E., Hoffmann, H., Schaal, S. The dual role of uncertainty in force field learning In Abstracts of the Eighteenth Annual Meeting of Neural Control of Movement (NCM), Naples, Florida, April 29-May 4, 2008, clmc (inproceedings)

[BibTex]

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Dynamic movement primitives for movement generation motivated by convergent force fields in frog

Hoffmann, H., Pastor, P., Schaal, S.

In Adaptive Motion of Animals and Machines (AMAM), 2008, clmc (inproceedings)

PDF [BibTex]

Hoffmann, H., Pastor, P., Schaal, S. Dynamic movement primitives for movement generation motivated by convergent force fields in frog In Adaptive Motion of Animals and Machines (AMAM), 2008, clmc (inproceedings)

PDF [BibTex]

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Behavioral experiments on reinforcement learning in human motor control

Hoffmann, H., Theodorou, E., Schaal, S.

In Abstracts of the Eighteenth Annual Meeting of Neural Control of Movement (NCM), Naples, Florida, April 29-May 4, 2008, clmc (inproceedings)

Abstract
Reinforcement learning (RL) - learning solely based on reward or cost feedback - is widespread in robotics control and has been also suggested as computational model for human motor control. In human motor control, however, hardly any experiment studied reinforcement learning. Here, we study learning based on visual cost feedback in a reaching task and did three experiments: (1) to establish a simple enough experiment for RL, (2) to study spatial localization of RL, and (3) to study the dependence of RL on the cost function. In experiment (1), subjects sit in front of a drawing tablet and look at a screen onto which the drawing pen's position is projected. Beginning from a start point, their task is to move with the pen through a target point presented on screen. Visual feedback about the pen's position is given only before movement onset. At the end of a movement, subjects get visual feedback only about the cost of this trial. We choose as cost the squared distance between target and virtual pen position at the target line. Above a threshold value, the cost was fixed at this value. In the mapping of the pen's position onto the screen, we added a bias (unknown to subject) and Gaussian noise. As result, subjects could learn the bias, and thus, showed reinforcement learning. In experiment (2), we randomly altered the target position between three different locations (three different directions from start point: -45, 0, 45). For each direction, we chose a different bias. As result, subjects learned all three bias values simultaneously. Thus, RL can be spatially localized. In experiment (3), we varied the sensitivity of the cost function by multiplying the squared distance with a constant value C, while keeping the same cut-off threshold. As in experiment (2), we had three target locations. We assigned to each location a different C value (this assignment was randomized between subjects). Since subjects learned the three locations simultaneously, we could directly compare the effect of the different cost functions. As result, we found an optimal C value; if C was too small (insensitive cost), learning was slow; if C was too large (narrow cost valley), the exploration time was longer and learning delayed. Thus, reinforcement learning in human motor control appears to be sen

[BibTex]

Hoffmann, H., Theodorou, E., Schaal, S. Behavioral experiments on reinforcement learning in human motor control In Abstracts of the Eighteenth Annual Meeting of Neural Control of Movement (NCM), Naples, Florida, April 29-May 4, 2008, clmc (inproceedings)

[BibTex]

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Movement generation by learning from demonstration and generalization to new targets

Pastor, P., Hoffmann, H., Schaal, S.

In Adaptive Motion of Animals and Machines (AMAM), 2008, clmc (inproceedings)

PDF [BibTex]

Pastor, P., Hoffmann, H., Schaal, S. Movement generation by learning from demonstration and generalization to new targets In Adaptive Motion of Animals and Machines (AMAM), 2008, clmc (inproceedings)

PDF [BibTex]

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Combining dynamic movement primitives and potential fields for online obstacle avoidance

Park, D., Hoffmann, H., Schaal, S.

In Adaptive Motion of Animals and Machines (AMAM), Cleveland, Ohio, 2008, 2008, clmc (inproceedings)

link (url) [BibTex]

Park, D., Hoffmann, H., Schaal, S. Combining dynamic movement primitives and potential fields for online obstacle avoidance In Adaptive Motion of Animals and Machines (AMAM), Cleveland, Ohio, 2008, 2008, clmc (inproceedings)

link (url) [BibTex]

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Computational model for movement learning under uncertain cost

Theodorou, E., Hoffmann, H., Mistry, M., Schaal, S.

In Abstracts of the Society of Neuroscience Meeting (SFN 2008), Washington, DC 2008, 2008, clmc (inproceedings)

Abstract
Stochastic optimal control is a framework for computing control commands that lead to an optimal behavior under a given cost. Despite the long history of optimal control in engineering, it has been only recently applied to describe human motion. So far, stochastic optimal control has been mainly used in tasks that are already learned, such as reaching to a target. For learning, however, there are only few cases where optimal control has been applied. The main assumptions of stochastic optimal control that restrict its application to tasks after learning are the a priori knowledge of (1) a quadratic cost function (2) a state space model that captures the kinematics and/or dynamics of musculoskeletal system and (3) a measurement equation that models the proprioceptive and/or exteroceptive feedback. Under these assumptions, a sequence of control gains is computed that is optimal with respect to the prespecified cost function. In our work, we relax the assumption of the a priori known cost function and provide a computational framework for modeling tasks that involve learning. Typically, a cost function consists of two parts: one part that models the task constraints, like squared distance to goal at movement endpoint, and one part that integrates over the squared control commands. In learning a task, the first part of this cost function will be adapted. We use an expectation-maximization scheme for learning: the expectation step optimizes the task constraints through gradient descent of a reward function and the maximizing step optimizes the control commands. Our computational model is tested and compared with data given from a behavioral experiment. In this experiment, subjects sit in front of a drawing tablet and look at a screen onto which the drawing-pen's position is projected. Beginning from a start point, their task is to move with the pen through a target point presented on screen. Visual feedback about the pen's position is given only before movement onset. At the end of a movement, subjects get visual feedback only about the cost of this trial. In the mapping of the pen's position onto the screen, we added a bias (unknown to subject) and Gaussian noise. Therefore the cost is a function of this bias. The subjects were asked to reach to the target and minimize this cost over trials. In this behavioral experiment, subjects could learn the bias and thus showed reinforcement learning. With our computational model, we could model the learning process over trials. Particularly, the dependence on parameters of the reward function (Gaussian width) and the modulation of movement variance over time were similar in experiment and model.

[BibTex]

Theodorou, E., Hoffmann, H., Mistry, M., Schaal, S. Computational model for movement learning under uncertain cost In Abstracts of the Society of Neuroscience Meeting (SFN 2008), Washington, DC 2008, 2008, clmc (inproceedings)

[BibTex]

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A Bayesian approach to empirical local linearizations for robotics

Ting, J., D’Souza, A., Vijayakumar, S., Schaal, S.

In International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA2008), Pasadena, CA, USA, May 19-23, 2008, 2008, clmc (inproceedings)

Abstract
Local linearizations are ubiquitous in the control of robotic systems. Analytical methods, if available, can be used to obtain the linearization, but in complex robotics systems where the the dynamics and kinematics are often not faithfully obtainable, empirical linearization may be preferable. In this case, it is important to only use data for the local linearization that lies within a ``reasonable'' linear regime of the system, which can be defined from the Hessian at the point of the linearization -- a quantity that is not available without an analytical model. We introduce a Bayesian approach to solve statistically what constitutes a ``reasonable'' local regime. We approach this problem in the context local linear regression. In contrast to previous locally linear methods, we avoid cross-validation or complex statistical hypothesis testing techniques to find the appropriate local regime. Instead, we treat the parameters of the local regime probabilistically and use approximate Bayesian inference for their estimation. This approach results in an analytical set of iterative update equations that are easily implemented on real robotics systems for real-time applications. As in other locally weighted regressions, our algorithm also lends itself to complete nonlinear function approximation for learning empirical internal models. We sketch the derivation of our Bayesian method and provide evaluations on synthetic data and actual robot data where the analytical linearization was known.

link (url) [BibTex]

Ting, J., D’Souza, A., Vijayakumar, S., Schaal, S. A Bayesian approach to empirical local linearizations for robotics In International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA2008), Pasadena, CA, USA, May 19-23, 2008, 2008, clmc (inproceedings)

link (url) [BibTex]

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Do humans plan continuous trajectories in kinematic coordinates?

Hoffmann, H., Schaal, S.

In Abstracts of the Society of Neuroscience Meeting (SFN 2008), Washington, DC 2008, 2008, clmc (inproceedings)

Abstract
The planning and execution of human arm movements is still unresolved. An ongoing controversy is whether we plan a movement in kinematic coordinates and convert these coordinates with an inverse internal model into motor commands (like muscle activation) or whether we combine a few muscle synergies or equilibrium points to move a hand, e.g., between two targets. The first hypothesis implies that a planner produces a desired end-effector position for all time points; the second relies on the dynamics of the muscular-skeletal system for a given control command to produce a continuous end-effector trajectory. To distinguish between these two possibilities, we use a visuomotor adaptation experiment. Subjects moved a pen on a graphics tablet and observed the pen's mapped position onto a screen (subjects quickly adapted to this mapping). The task was to move a cursor between two points in a given time window. In the adaptation test, we manipulated the velocity profile of the cursor feedback such that the shape of the trajectories remained unchanged (for straight paths). If humans would use a kinematic plan and map at each time the desired end-effector position onto control commands, subjects should adapt to the above manipulation. In a similar experiment, Wolpert et al (1995) showed adaptation to changes in the curvature of trajectories. This result, however, cannot rule out a shift of an equilibrium point or an additional synergy activation between start and end point of a movement. In our experiment, subjects did two sessions, one control without and one with velocity-profile manipulation. To skew the velocity profile of the cursor trajectory, we added to the current velocity, v, the function 0.8*v*cos(pi + pi*x), where x is the projection of the cursor position onto the start-goal line divided by the distance start to goal (x=0 at the start point). As result, subjects did not adapt to this manipulation: for all subjects, the true hand motion was not significantly modified in a direction consistent with adaptation, despite that the visually presented motion differed significantly from the control motion. One may still argue that this difference in motion was insufficient to be processed visually. Thus, as a control experiment, we replayed control and modified motions to the subjects and asked which of the two motions appeared 'more natural'. Subjects chose the unperturbed motion as more natural significantly better than chance. In summary, for a visuomotor transformation task, the hypothesis of a planned continuous end-effector trajectory predicts adaptation to a modified velocity profile. The current experiment found no adaptation under such transformation.

[BibTex]

Hoffmann, H., Schaal, S. Do humans plan continuous trajectories in kinematic coordinates? In Abstracts of the Society of Neuroscience Meeting (SFN 2008), Washington, DC 2008, 2008, clmc (inproceedings)

[BibTex]

2006

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Learning operational space control

Peters, J., Schaal, S.

In Robotics: Science and Systems II (RSS 2006), pages: 255-262, (Editors: Gaurav S. Sukhatme and Stefan Schaal and Wolfram Burgard and Dieter Fox), Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, RSS , 2006, clmc (inproceedings)

Abstract
While operational space control is of essential importance for robotics and well-understood from an analytical point of view, it can be prohibitively hard to achieve accurate control in face of modeling errors, which are inevitable in complex robots, e.g., humanoid robots. In such cases, learning control methods can offer an interesting alternative to analytical control algorithms. However, the resulting learning problem is ill-defined as it requires to learn an inverse mapping of a usually redundant system, which is well known to suffer from the property of non-covexity of the solution space, i.e., the learning system could generate motor commands that try to steer the robot into physically impossible configurations. A first important insight for this paper is that, nevertheless, a physically correct solution to the inverse problem does exits when learning of the inverse map is performed in a suitable piecewise linear way. The second crucial component for our work is based on a recent insight that many operational space controllers can be understood in terms of a constraint optimal control problem. The cost function associated with this optimal control problem allows us to formulate a learning algorithm that automatically synthesizes a globally consistent desired resolution of redundancy while learning the operational space controller. From the view of machine learning, the learning problem corresponds to a reinforcement learning problem that maximizes an immediate reward and that employs an expectation-maximization policy search algorithm. Evaluations on a three degrees of freedom robot arm illustrate the feasability of our suggested approach.

link (url) [BibTex]

2006

Peters, J., Schaal, S. Learning operational space control In Robotics: Science and Systems II (RSS 2006), pages: 255-262, (Editors: Gaurav S. Sukhatme and Stefan Schaal and Wolfram Burgard and Dieter Fox), Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, RSS , 2006, clmc (inproceedings)

link (url) [BibTex]

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Reinforcement Learning for Parameterized Motor Primitives

Peters, J., Schaal, S.

In Proceedings of the 2006 International Joint Conference on Neural Networks, pages: 73-80, IJCNN, 2006, clmc (inproceedings)

Abstract
One of the major challenges in both action generation for robotics and in the understanding of human motor control is to learn the "building blocks of movement generation", called motor primitives. Motor primitives, as used in this paper, are parameterized control policies such as splines or nonlinear differential equations with desired attractor properties. While a lot of progress has been made in teaching parameterized motor primitives using supervised or imitation learning, the self-improvement by interaction of the system with the environment remains a challenging problem. In this paper, we evaluate different reinforcement learning approaches for improving the performance of parameterized motor primitives. For pursuing this goal, we highlight the difficulties with current reinforcement learning methods, and outline both established and novel algorithms for the gradient-based improvement of parameterized policies. We compare these algorithms in the context of motor primitive learning, and show that our most modern algorithm, the Episodic Natural Actor-Critic outperforms previous algorithms by at least an order of magnitude. We demonstrate the efficiency of this reinforcement learning method in the application of learning to hit a baseball with an anthropomorphic robot arm.

link (url) DOI [BibTex]

Peters, J., Schaal, S. Reinforcement Learning for Parameterized Motor Primitives In Proceedings of the 2006 International Joint Conference on Neural Networks, pages: 73-80, IJCNN, 2006, clmc (inproceedings)

link (url) DOI [BibTex]

2003

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Dynamic movement primitives - A framework for motor control in humans and humanoid robots

Schaal, S.

In The International Symposium on Adaptive Motion of Animals and Machines, Kyoto, Japan, March 4-8, 2003, March 2003, clmc (inproceedings)

Abstract
Sensory-motor integration is one of the key issues in robotics. In this paper, we propose an approach to rhythmic arm movement control that is synchronized with an external signal based on exploiting a simple neural oscillator network. Trajectory generation by the neural oscillator is a biologically inspired method that can allow us to generate a smooth and continuous trajectory. The parameter tuning of the oscillators is used to generate a synchronized movement with wide intervals. We adopted the method for the drumming task as an example task. By using this method, the robot can realize synchronized drumming with wide drumming intervals in real time. The paper also shows the experimental results of drumming by a humanoid robot.

link (url) [BibTex]

2003

Schaal, S. Dynamic movement primitives - A framework for motor control in humans and humanoid robots In The International Symposium on Adaptive Motion of Animals and Machines, Kyoto, Japan, March 4-8, 2003, March 2003, clmc (inproceedings)

link (url) [BibTex]

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Bayesian backfitting

D’Souza, A., Vijayakumar, S., Schaal, S.

In Proceedings of the 10th Joint Symposium on Neural Computation (JSNC 2003), Irvine, CA, May 2003, 2003, clmc (inproceedings)

Abstract
We present an algorithm aimed at addressing both computational and analytical intractability of Bayesian regression models which operate in very high-dimensional, usually underconstrained spaces. Several domains of research frequently provide such datasets, including chemometrics [2], and human movement analysis [1]. The literature in nonparametric statistics provides interesting solutions such as Backfitting [3] and Partial Least Squares [4], which are extremely robust and efficient, yet lack a probabilistic interpretation that could place them in the context of current research in statistical learning algorithms that emphasize the estimation of confidence, posterior distributions, and model complexity. In order to achieve numerical robustness and low computational cost, we first derive a novel Bayesian interpretation of Backfitting (BB) as a computationally efficient regression algorithm. BBÕs learning complexity scales linearly with the input dimensionality by decoupling inference among individual input dimensions. We embed BB in an efficient, locally variational model selection mechanism that automatically grows the number of backfitting experts in a mixture-of-experts regression model. We demonstrate the effectiveness of the algorithm in performing principled regularization of model complexity when fitting nonlinear manifolds while avoiding the numerical hazards associated with highly underconstrained problems. We also note that this algorithm appears applicable in various areas of neural computation, e.g., in abstract models of computational neuroscience, or implementations of statistical learning on artificial systems.

link (url) [BibTex]

D’Souza, A., Vijayakumar, S., Schaal, S. Bayesian backfitting In Proceedings of the 10th Joint Symposium on Neural Computation (JSNC 2003), Irvine, CA, May 2003, 2003, clmc (inproceedings)

link (url) [BibTex]

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Reinforcement learning for humanoid robotics

Peters, J., Vijayakumar, S., Schaal, S.

In IEEE-RAS International Conference on Humanoid Robots (Humanoids2003), Karlsruhe, Germany, Sept.29-30, 2003, clmc (inproceedings)

Abstract
Reinforcement learning offers one of the most general framework to take traditional robotics towards true autonomy and versatility. However, applying reinforcement learning to high dimensional movement systems like humanoid robots remains an unsolved problem. In this paper, we discuss different approaches of reinforcement learning in terms of their applicability in humanoid robotics. Methods can be coarsely classified into three different categories, i.e., greedy methods, `vanilla' policy gradient methods, and natural gradient methods. We discuss that greedy methods are not likely to scale into the domain humanoid robotics as they are problematic when used with function approximation. `Vanilla' policy gradient methods on the other hand have been successfully applied on real-world robots including at least one humanoid robot. We demonstrate that these methods can be significantly improved using the natural policy gradient instead of the regular policy gradient. A derivation of the natural policy gradient is provided, proving that the average policy gradient of Kakade (2002) is indeed the true natural gradient. A general algorithm for estimating the natural gradient, the Natural Actor-Critic algorithm, is introduced. This algorithm converges to the nearest local minimum of the cost function with respect to the Fisher information metric under suitable conditions. The algorithm outperforms non-natural policy gradients by far in a cart-pole balancing evaluation, and for learning nonlinear dynamic motor primitives for humanoid robot control. It offers a promising route for the development of reinforcement learning for truly high dimensionally continuous state-action systems.

link (url) [BibTex]

Peters, J., Vijayakumar, S., Schaal, S. Reinforcement learning for humanoid robotics In IEEE-RAS International Conference on Humanoid Robots (Humanoids2003), Karlsruhe, Germany, Sept.29-30, 2003, clmc (inproceedings)

link (url) [BibTex]

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Discovering imitation strategies through categorization of multi-cimensional data

Billard, A., Epars, Y., Schaal, S., Cheng, G.

In IEEE International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS 2003), Las Vegas, NV, Oct. 27-31, 2003, clmc (inproceedings)

Abstract
An essential problem of imitation is that of determining Ówhat to imitateÓ, i.e. to determine which of the many features of the demonstration are relevant to the task and which should be reproduced. The strategy followed by the imitator can be modeled as a hierarchical optimization system, which minimizes the discrepancy between two multidimensional datasets. We consider imitation of a manipulation task. To classify across manipulation strategies, we apply a probabilistic analysis to data in Cartesian and joint spaces. We determine a general metric that optimizes the policy of task reproduction, following strategy determination. The model successfully discovers strategies in six different manipulation tasks and controls task reproduction by a full body humanoid robot. or the complete path followed by the demonstrator. We follow a similar taxonomy and apply it to the learning and reproduction of a manipulation task by a humanoid robot. We take the perspective that the features of the movements to imitate are those that appear most frequently, i.e. the invariants in time. The model builds upon previous work [3], [4] and is composed of a hierarchical time delay neural network that extracts invariant features from a manipulation task performed by a human demonstrator. The system analyzes the Carthesian trajectories of the objects and the joint

link (url) [BibTex]

Billard, A., Epars, Y., Schaal, S., Cheng, G. Discovering imitation strategies through categorization of multi-cimensional data In IEEE International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS 2003), Las Vegas, NV, Oct. 27-31, 2003, clmc (inproceedings)

link (url) [BibTex]

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Scaling reinforcement learning paradigms for motor learning

Peters, J., Vijayakumar, S., Schaal, S.

In Proceedings of the 10th Joint Symposium on Neural Computation (JSNC 2003), Irvine, CA, May 2003, 2003, clmc (inproceedings)

Abstract
Reinforcement learning offers a general framework to explain reward related learning in artificial and biological motor control. However, current reinforcement learning methods rarely scale to high dimensional movement systems and mainly operate in discrete, low dimensional domains like game-playing, artificial toy problems, etc. This drawback makes them unsuitable for application to human or bio-mimetic motor control. In this poster, we look at promising approaches that can potentially scale and suggest a novel formulation of the actor-critic algorithm which takes steps towards alleviating the current shortcomings. We argue that methods based on greedy policies are not likely to scale into high-dimensional domains as they are problematic when used with function approximation Ð a must when dealing with continuous domains. We adopt the path of direct policy gradient based policy improvements since they avoid the problems of unstabilizing dynamics encountered in traditional value iteration based updates. While regular policy gradient methods have demonstrated promising results in the domain of humanoid notor control, we demonstrate that these methods can be significantly improved using the natural policy gradient instead of the regular policy gradient. Based on this, it is proved that KakadeÕs Ôaverage natural policy gradientÕ is indeed the true natural gradient. A general algorithm for estimating the natural gradient, the Natural Actor-Critic algorithm, is introduced. This algorithm converges with probability one to the nearest local minimum in Riemannian space of the cost function. The algorithm outperforms nonnatural policy gradients by far in a cart-pole balancing evaluation, and offers a promising route for the development of reinforcement learning for truly high-dimensionally continuous state-action systems.

link (url) [BibTex]

Peters, J., Vijayakumar, S., Schaal, S. Scaling reinforcement learning paradigms for motor learning In Proceedings of the 10th Joint Symposium on Neural Computation (JSNC 2003), Irvine, CA, May 2003, 2003, clmc (inproceedings)

link (url) [BibTex]

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Learning attractor landscapes for learning motor primitives

Ijspeert, A., Nakanishi, J., Schaal, S.

In Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems 15, pages: 1547-1554, (Editors: Becker, S.;Thrun, S.;Obermayer, K.), Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2003, clmc (inproceedings)

Abstract
If globally high dimensional data has locally only low dimensional distributions, it is advantageous to perform a local dimensionality reduction before further processing the data. In this paper we examine several techniques for local dimensionality reduction in the context of locally weighted linear regression. As possible candidates, we derive local versions of factor analysis regression, principle component regression, principle component regression on joint distributions, and partial least squares regression. After outlining the statistical bases of these methods, we perform Monte Carlo simulations to evaluate their robustness with respect to violations of their statistical assumptions. One surprising outcome is that locally weighted partial least squares regression offers the best average results, thus outperforming even factor analysis, the theoretically most appealing of our candidate techniques.Ê

link (url) [BibTex]

Ijspeert, A., Nakanishi, J., Schaal, S. Learning attractor landscapes for learning motor primitives In Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems 15, pages: 1547-1554, (Editors: Becker, S.;Thrun, S.;Obermayer, K.), Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2003, clmc (inproceedings)

link (url) [BibTex]

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Learning from demonstration and adaptation of biped locomotion with dynamical movement primitives

Nakanishi, J., Morimoto, J., Endo, G., Schaal, S., Kawato, M.

In Workshop on Robot Learning by Demonstration, IEEE International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS 2003), Las Vegas, NV, Oct. 27-31, 2003, clmc (inproceedings)

Abstract
In this paper, we report on our research for learning biped locomotion from human demonstration. Our ultimate goal is to establish a design principle of a controller in order to achieve natural human-like locomotion. We suggest dynamical movement primitives as a CPG of a biped robot, an approach we have previously proposed for learning and encoding complex human movements. Demonstrated trajectories are learned through the movement primitives by locally weighted regression, and the frequency of the learned trajectories is adjusted automatically by a novel frequency adaptation algorithm based on phase resetting and entrainment of oscillators. Numerical simulations demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed locomotion controller.

link (url) [BibTex]

Nakanishi, J., Morimoto, J., Endo, G., Schaal, S., Kawato, M. Learning from demonstration and adaptation of biped locomotion with dynamical movement primitives In Workshop on Robot Learning by Demonstration, IEEE International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS 2003), Las Vegas, NV, Oct. 27-31, 2003, clmc (inproceedings)

link (url) [BibTex]

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Movement planning and imitation by shaping nonlinear attractors

Schaal, S.

In Proceedings of the 12th Yale Workshop on Adaptive and Learning Systems, Yale University, New Haven, CT, 2003, clmc (inproceedings)

Abstract
Given the continuous stream of movements that biological systems exhibit in their daily activities, an account for such versatility and creativity has to assume that movement sequences consist of segments, executed either in sequence or with partial or complete overlap. Therefore, a fundamental question that has pervaded research in motor control both in artificial and biological systems revolves around identifying movement primitives (a.k.a. units of actions, basis behaviors, motor schemas, etc.). What are the fundamental building blocks that are strung together, adapted to, and created for ever new behaviors? This paper summarizes results that led to the hypothesis of Dynamic Movement Primitives (DMP). DMPs are units of action that are formalized as stable nonlinear attractor systems. They are useful for autonomous robotics as they are highly flexible in creating complex rhythmic (e.g., locomotion) and discrete (e.g., a tennis swing) behaviors that can quickly be adapted to the inevitable perturbations of a dy-namically changing, stochastic environment. Moreover, DMPs provide a formal framework that also lends itself to investigations in computational neuroscience. A recent finding that allows creating DMPs with the help of well-understood statistical learning methods has elevated DMPs from a more heuristic to a principled modeling approach, and, moreover, created a new foundation for imitation learning. Theoretical insights, evaluations on a humanoid robot, and behavioral and brain imaging data will serve to outline the framework of DMPs for a general approach to motor control and imitation in robotics and biology.

link (url) [BibTex]

Schaal, S. Movement planning and imitation by shaping nonlinear attractors In Proceedings of the 12th Yale Workshop on Adaptive and Learning Systems, Yale University, New Haven, CT, 2003, clmc (inproceedings)

link (url) [BibTex]